Compulsory modules (80 credits) in:
Optional modules (a total of 40 credits) from:
Media Analysis This module provides students with a critical and theoretical understanding of culture, communications and the media. The module explores media institutions, media texts, cultures and media technologies in the context of changing cultures and identities globally. Students will have the opportunity to analyse a range of aspects of media, culture and communications covering film, television, popular literature and music.
Media Law This module familiarises students with aspects of the legal system, in a transnational context, by examining the constraints placed on the production of news and current affairs. Ethical issues that apply to these contexts are examined in relation to international human rights law. The range of restrictions associated with court reporting is examined to allow students to develop and apply techniques of writing court reports, war reports and election reporting. Aspects of the legal system that impinge on journalists’ professional practices are studied, including concepts of defamation, privilege and contempt and the constraints of reporting during war and elections.
Methodologies: Researching Media, Culture & Society The module introduces students to a range of methodologies that are central to researching the media, culture and society. It begins by examining ways of generating research data and investigating specific forms of quantitative and qualitative analysis, with an emphasis on the latter. The foundations of methodology and techniques of information gathering and analysis are then explored. Key social and cultural debates about research methods in media and culture are scrutinised. We then engage with the practical components of conducting research so that students may gain a sophisticated understanding of key aspects of the politics of research methodology in order to enhance the skills needed to produce a dissertation.
Multimedia Journalism: Principles and Practice Some call it multi-media, some call it convergence – but whatever you call it, the message is clear; journalists and other professional communicators can no longer rely on a single set of skills in print, photography, TV or radio put their stories in front of their readers. Today’s journalists – and PR people – need to be able to tell their stories in many ways, using many different media technologies, and engage with many different audiences. No longer are readers, viewers or listeners content to simply accept what is put in front of them; they can help to shape the story by supplying additional facts, context, opinions, still and moving images and sound clips – and the audiences are also part of the new distribution network for stories and reports.
Advertising and Consumption The module examines the cultural politics of advertising and consumption in relation to the perspective of cultural studies. It provides a critical map of the field and studies work on consumer culture in anthropology and sociology as well as work on media audiences within media studies and sociology. The module will examine the balance between constraint and power and creativity and resistance, making links between consumption and production, and the patterns that shape access to symbolic and material resources. Questions of place and identity, poverty, the privatization of the home, and the linking of local everyday practices with broader, global processes are explored in the context of advertising and consumption.
Building a PR Campaign In seeking to absorb and understand the reams of marketing / pr and communications theory available to students, hands on experience can prove invaluable. Not for nothing did one of the most memorable campaigns of our time exhort you to, ‘Just do it.’ This module offers students the opportunity to design, deliver and evaluate a PR campaign which will directly benefit a local charity or voluntary sector organisation. The format and structure of the course will be student centred – responding directly to the challenges and requirements of each campaign as and when they arise.
Working in small groups, students will be allocated a client from the voluntary or private sector and challenged to develop a campaign which is tailored to their specific needs. With guidance from the module leader, and working closely with their clients, each group will gain a clear understanding of the brief and work together to agree specific objectives for their campaign. Students will then be encouraged to utilise their research skills to gain an appreciation of the audiences they need to target and the ways in which those groups of people receive and assimilate information. Armed with this knowledge, students will go on to develop their creative, communication and presenting skills as they devise a campaign plan and make their pitch for the budget which will help them achieve their objectives. Having launched the campaign to the public, students will then take individual responsibility for a particular audience sector. Within the parameters of the campaign, each student will seek to raise audience awareness, evaluate their success or otherwise and to take the necessary action to achieve their objectives. Following a final evaluation of their campaign’s achievements, each team will give a presentation outlining their brief, objectives, strategy, application and evaluation.
Celebrity Culture The module aims to critically and theoretically investigate the rise of the celebrity during the twentieth century by locating and mapping the paradoxical and contingent nature of fame. The module will situate the conflicting and contrasting notion of the contemporary ‘celebrity’ alongside established versions of celebrity identity and identification. By positioning the politics of the ‘ordinary’ social sphere against the ‘extraordinary’ world of celebrity culture, it will use literature and theories from the fields of media and cultural studies, critical theory and visual culture to evaluate and bring to bear contexts and case studies. A range of new approaches and theoretical paradigms will be situated alongside approaches acquired in COM 1023 and COM 1026. These approaches will allow for a critical application of ideas to the critique of the world of celebrity. These approaches will be organised around three key themes :theoretical approaches to ‘celebrity culture’ and the media; celebrities, identity, representation and consumption;celebrity, capitalism and cultural change.
Globalisation and National Culture We live in a globalising world that creates particular challenges to our everyday identity, resulting in increased levels of anxiety for all of us. Globalisation/anti-globalisation, nationalisms and religious fundamentalisms, McDonaldisation and Starbuckification are constantly invoked as new menaces threatening the core fundamentals of our nations. How real are such threats? How can we understand what is actually going on? The module will try to answer some of these questions by looking at a wide range of theoretical explanations of national identity formation, globalisation and the role of culture in contemporary world. It will critically address aspects of globalisation of culture, through its political, economic and social implications. From Hollywood to Bollywood, from the internet to the music video, from football stands to art galleries, we will explore aspects of contemporary cultural identity as they are constructed on a national and global scale.
News and Journalism: Critical Studies This module examines the role of journalism in a democracy. It provides students with the opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of the key issues confronting journalism today by examining key debates about the forms and practices of reporting and about the quality of news. The module examines source dynamics in news production, sexism and racism in the news; the commodification of news, ‘tabloidisation’, scandals and celebrities; patterns in reporting conflict, terrorism and war; and the state of investigative journalism. The module places these themes and issues in the context of global media and allows students to draw on concepts and theories addressed in the compulsory module, Media Analysis.
Sex, Sexuality and Desire The module will bring together work on sexuality, culture study, anthropology and sociology and work on the media. It provides an introduction to issues of sexual communication, examines sexual education; health intimacy and desire; the problems of communicationg about sex. The module investigates the changing media representation of sexual practices. It looks at sexual space in contemporary society and examines the interface between sexual behaviour and new technologies. Globalisation, consumption and marketing are investigated on this module.
Professional sub-editing This module introduces students to the editorial production processes in print journalism and the new media sector, and develops skills which continue to be in demand within the industry. It will develop, primarily through workshop sessions, the skills of copy-editing, proof reading and clear, concise, accurate writing involved in preparation for publication and apply them to news, features and other newspaper, magazine and website content. It encourages a critical awareness of the need for, and develops the creative skills necessary to produce, accurate and ethical copy, combined with functional and engaging design in the context of print publications. A critical awareness of key ethical and legal issues relating to the representation and inclusion of diverse groups will be integrated into every facet of the curriculum.
Public Affairs: Politics, Journalism, PR This module introduces students to all levels of the organisation of government, from the local and regional level to that of transnational institutions such as the United Nations. The module provides students with the information to comprehend the democratic and other governmental processes that shape public administration. Case study examples will be used from selected nations and regions to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the parallels and differences between states and regions. Students explore the role of the media within the governmental and democratic processes and gain practical skills to report public affairs. The module includes a visit to a local authority meeting.
PR in the Digital Age This module introduces students to the relatively new concept of digital public relations. It will enable students to master the practical and theoretical aspects of public relations in the multimedia landscape. They will develop a wide range of professional skills now needed in this fast paced industry.
Through practical workshops, supervised exercises and discussion, they will discover how to write press releases for the internet. They will learn how to use blogs and networking websites like myspace to raise awareness and will find out how to use new concepts like citizen journalism and video releases in a PR campaign.
They will engage in a project to plan and produce a digital media PR campaign of their choice and they will learn the skills to implement this campaign effectively.
Strategies and Management in PR This module introduces the theory of PR and enables students to developand experiment with a wide range of professional skills. Through practical workshops, supervised excercises and discussion, they will engage in a project to plan and produce a PR campaign for a private, public or voluntary sector organisation. students will work in groups and the project will culminate in a presentation of the campaign to their 'clients'. Students will also be introduced to the theories of crisis management and work in groups in a 'live' crisis management situation.
Television Studies Topics explored on this module include quality and programming, reality TV, advertising, drama, documentary and news, genre and textual analysis, the development of television at key moments in television history, and questions of the relationship between television and social formations in public and private spheres such as class, national identity, and race.
Theoretical Approaches to PR This module aims to provide an in-depth engagement with the body of PR theory, emphasising the need for a critical exploration of the relevance of theory to practice. The module presents a set of interdisciplinary connections between PR theory and debates in Media, Journalism and Communication theory. It traces the history and development of PR, explores the ethical issues which affect the industry, and examines PR’s relationship with political communication – informed by rigorous theoretical paradigm.